My husband had a 2 year affair and I don’t know whether to take him back

[Thescornedwife]

This is a hard question to even write, I am
crying while writing it that I can’t even see properly. My DH has been having a 2 year affair with a co-worker, the last year of it being physical and the first year emotional. The OW left her husband and my husband left me however neither of them said why, just that the marriages were over and they didn’t love their spouses anymore.

This was 6 months ago and I have been in turmoil as to how he can leave me and our grown daughters in limbo, not coming on holiday and living away from home etc, but I have just found out it’s because of this other woman. He has slept with her countless times and in contact with her day and night for 2 years constantly, pledged his love for her, visited her at her home and played happy families with her all in secret. Been her support system, had his own shower gel etc at her house, took her a birthday cake on her birthday, helped her with DIY in the house, the list is endless. The lies have been colossal! I only found out because he told me before she did because she had had enough of him not making a fuller commitment to her and she wanted to leave him and leave her job, and I also think work and work mates were becoming suspicious and the jig was up basically. I can’t help but feel he would have continued if she hadn’t got cold feet.

Now he all of a sudden wants back home and is sorry and it meant nothing and she was more into it than he was and he loves me and wants to go to counselling blah blah!

He has lost his job, his reputation and my DC can’t look at him and never mind my extended family! He was afraid the OW would tell me everything because I contacted her also so he told me every single gory detail that I now can’t get out of my head! It’s sickening! Very sickening!

I love him still and he’s all I know, can this be repaired? Did he love her? He took the biggest risks to be with her, what the hell does that say about me? And everything else we created together?

Your husband risked dismissal and was happy to take this risk and jeopardise his share of the mortgage of the house where his daughters live so he could have sex at work.

Now your daughters are in danger of losing their home and you're seriously considering taking him back? Just because you still love him?

So first dad and now mum are putting their own relationship needs first, above their own children.

Your first priority should be your children, not this jobless cocklodger.

We remortgaged to do some large amount of work on the house while he was in this affair, if I knew there’s no way I would have made such a large decision knowing that I would be doing maybe doing this myself financially. How could he do that?

pretty sure that having sex with a coworker )or anyone else), on work premises, in working hours, is gross misconduct. ANY firm would sack him.

Because he wanted to manipulate you. He did that because now you have found out you will consider staying with him because you’re vulnerable. He did that to keep you vulnerable. He did that to make sure you need him.

He did that to control you.

I think by looking after yourself and knowing your worth you are considering your children. You can't allow yourself to be disrespected just to get your children to adulthood. They deserve to learn how to not accept less and watching you be walked over is not a good example to set.

I have only read most of your messages @Thescornedwife and a few posters as I know what they'll be saying. I also know that a lot of the people commenting won't have experience of a spouse having an affair and wouldn't do what they telling you to do, whichever way around it is.

My husband confessed to an affair as he knew someone else was about to tell me. Since it took two weeks for the whole truth to come out it was made harder. Ultimately I stayed but it made me very poorly and I am only just recovering from the damage now. I will be fully okay though I know. The first couple of years I was in shock and in total I stayed seven years. I then divorced him over something else. I left him just over two years ago.

I have zero regrets at staying and zero at leaving. My children know it all now and were 18-22 when I ended the marriage. They support me. He's been rubbish. I considered taking him back once I saw how shit a dad he was being once out of the home. My middle child said I won't talk to him if he was here anyway and please don't.

The children haven't judged me for staying or leaving and quite frankly if they did I would feel a failure at how I'd brought them up. One friend judged me for staying and I've cut all contact with her after she judged me twice more for other things.

This is your one and only life. The only person you owe anything to is yourself. History means nothing. The here and now is all you have.

You can't trust your husband. All your decisions need to be based on what you can live with, what is best for you, what is best for your future, what is best for your children right now and their immediate future. Not for him at all.

Don't rush to make any decision, what you decide to do today doesn't have to be forever. Take the key off him. Or at the very least he needs to ask if he can come over and knocks on the door. Certainly stop sleeping with him. Don't be flattered that he wants you sexually. He's a man and this man wants his home comforts back. Don't give in until you are 100% sure and even then think again. It's too soon. Protect yourself and your future.

Feel free to PM me if you want too. Take care. I wish you well, whatever your decisions are.

seriously? By any definition having sex on work premises is a breach of professional standards and is gross misconduct.

Which absolutely means you cannot afford to have a jobless, lying piece of crap taking up time, space and energy in your home.

he has to face the consequences of his actions (they rarely arrive lubed)

be strong op.
be the woman your children need to see.

Just to add, when mine had only confessed to an emotional affair he said about suicide which naturally panicked me. Twat. BTW they never kill themselves. They are too weak to try but what manipulation. It's beyond cruel.

Never ever stay for the sake of the children. It is so unfair. What a burden to put on them that they are part of your unhappiness. It's wrong. I was so miserable and couldn't see how I could leave. Then I imagined telling my son and he would have been so upset that I had been so unhappy and that was my moment.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. Can I ask if he cheated again? I’m assuming so, or didn’t treat you right in those 7 years. The consensus I’m getting is that even if I did take him back (which I don’t think I will) I won’t be happy and that will effect me and my kids and wider family massively. I don’t want to lose everything and everyone for just him, especially as he’s shown me such disrespect

Hi op no one on here is your therapist - your in shock - your husband sounds a sick damaged man rubbing salt into your open wounds. You need to get space from him. He is not respecting your boundaries. You need to change the lock - he will continue to harass you until you give in. He knows your vulnerable and he quite frankly does not give shit!!! You talk about having children to consider -"let them be the priority then. Put them first - block him - email only - him having no where to take the kids is a HIS problem not yours.
Your making it all about HIM - tell him to f off!!!!
Suicide is always a useful tool for manipulative people - tell him to go to A and E and shut your door. If he chooses to do that - that is HIS decision.
You need time to process - stop oversharing with your children. Get a therapist.

No @Thescornedwife he never cheated again. He ended it very quickly once it got physical and he told me the following month. I divorced him over something worse than an affair.

He did treat me right in those seven years though at times I felt I did more to get us back but that's irrelevant here.

ironically, I had got to a place where I felt we were going to be okay. We would stay together.

Then something else happened, nothing physical, and I was done. But I did try for a few more months, there was a family loss that passed things, then outside influences, then I was done. He was shocked.

@Thescornedwife You are struggling, understandably.

For some, there would be no way back for him.

Have a look at this Esther Perel TED talk about infidelity, it may illuminate?

eta; ONLY YOU can decide how you want your life to look like moving forward @Thescornedwife even with the number of responses you've had

Let me ask if I have this correct? He is the son of a serial shagger who’s mum took his dad back multiple times and he’s asking you to have no spine or self respect and to do the same, thereby teaching your children that it’s OK for their future partners to behave like this.
You found out on the day he lost the job so he wants to come back saying that he loves you more than life, having told you that he didn’t love you and buggered off with another woman who he was shagging, while at work, in your family’s family business, risking a ton of perks and excellent wages. Getting paid while having sex at work is a perk that I’ve not come across before, but the world is changing, I suppose.

Well, he sounds a prince among men. Someone who, all of a sudden has been found out. Now he wants to walk all over you while you provide a roof over his head, food in his belly and, I am assuming, a regular shag.

Personally speaking, once a man had left me, I would not take him back as my life is not a car and it doesn’t have a reverse gear. Fool me once, shame on you but fool me twice, shame on me is as true now as it’s always been. I would not be able to still be in love with this man after being so treated.

I understand that you have feelings for this man, but how will you feel in 3 months when he’s sleeping with a new woman (or this same one) and expects you to forgive again, or even turn a blind eye? By taking him back, you are letting him know that it’s all OK and he’s fine to continue.

Don’t be an enabler. Don’t teach your children that it’s fine and normal to be walked all over by some bloke. I wish you all the luck in world with your future.

OP why don't you wish it hadn't happened rather than wishing you didn't know?

Why are you angry she ended it? Why aren't you angry that he didn't end it?

Why are you angry that as a mother she considered hurting your children by telling you? Why aren't you angry that as their father he risked hurting your children by doing this?

These are strange statements.

The family business has complicated this massively. It almost seems as though you may have turned a blind eye to this if it had been discrete. I think you are/were considering taking him back for the same reasons he wants to come back. It's easier than being alone.

In the early months of a break up you're flailing around not knowing what to do. Getting back together means not having to deal with a new life you didn't choose. You don't have to navigate single parenthood. You don't have to carry the mental and financial load of being a single adult household. The open wounds of the betrayal and that knot in your chest that's been there since it happened would go away. For a while...

If you try really hard, you can even pretend it never happened.

OP if he'd waited 20 years to reconcile, you'd show him the door. You'd have moved on met/married someone new and be living your best life. Right now, familiarity is preferable to the unknown. Right now taking back a lying cheating husband is still preferable to the unknown. I think that's why you're even entertaining this x

There is no hope for him

and no hope for another generation of girls i.e. Op’s daughters, who will learn it’s ok to be treated like garbage, that they’re not important enough for real love and to just accept scraps from shit men

hi op you ask how could he do that about remortgaging the house he did it because he didn’t care or think how you would be affected or his kids. I really hope you stay strong and don’t accept his bullshit he only wants you now because he has nothing if he really loved you it would never have took 6 months to realise and he wasn’t thinking of you when he had sex constantly in them 6 months let’s face it he had to confess because ow threatened to tell you. this is the only reason why you now know everything he would still be with her if she had let him. It sounds like your desperate because of the way feel about him but turn it around he doesn’t love you and he loved her because he chose her over you six months ago. The suicidal threats are to manipulate you if he really cared about you or his kids he would walk away and say I own it I fucked up it’s on me but he’s not even man enough to do this he’s looking after himself as usual selfish twat.

OP, when XH left me suddenly saying he no longer loved me, I begged him to come back, begged him to have counselling, begged him not to destroy our family. He refused on all accounts and blamed me for everything. Obviously there was OW, and he is married to her now.

Looking back, I could suddenly understand the change in phone behaviour, and the absences, and I can see now that I would never have trusted him again, and also would have been living on eggshells trying to fix all my alleged problems, so I could be the perfect wife so that he didn't leave me again. It would never have worked.

But at the time, all I wanted was for him to come back, declare he had made a terrible mistake, that he was sorry and wanted to be with me. I felt like that for a very long time, even though I knew the truth of OW by then.

OP, only you can decide if you want him back and if you can live with what he has done. But before that, you both need individual counselling to talk everything through on your own, before you had any sort of couple counselling. You need a period of time apart so you can both work out what you want. You have the upper hand now, and it is down to him to prove his love to you, if it is genuine.

He needs to prove to you that he loves you, wants to be with you and is sorry beyond belief for what he did to you.

You can't just be the easiest safest option for him, that is not fair to you. If you take him back without him realising what he did to you all, he will just do it to you again.

If he threatens suicide then tell the police and his parents. Usually this threat is just another form of control

A disciplinary process has to be followed though, not how the OP said it happened. Though she's since changed the story from him being immediately sacked to him leaving immediately of his own accord.

Hi Op, I hope what I'm about to say doesn't come across too harsh because even though we're strangers I'm saying it because I care for you and your kids.

If I was your friend I would be torn whether to hug you or shake you. You have been through a trauma and it sounds like your ex is doing an amazing job as master manipulator (what else can you expect from a man who led a double life for 2 years).

You need solo therapy, a solicitor and a way to limit contact with your ex. I would recommend creating an email address and blocking his number. Make him aware that you will only communicate about the children and anything necessary such as what to do with the house etc.. You need to not have any conversations about him and his feelings until you are confident in yours.

If he is threatening suicide, this is abuse. I would respond by forwarding the messages to his family and say please contact x to complete a welfare check as he's clearly unwell.

You and your children deserve so much more than this. He is a rat who is trying to worm his way back in and is relying on his manipulation working. As hard as it is to realise, it's not about you as an individual he loves, it's about him having an ego death and trying to scrape back any sort of life he can because he's living an embarrassing mess of a life. It is absolutely no reflection on you the actions he has taken but you need to think about this as objectively as you can - if he ever truly loved and respected you he wouldn't have cheated and left in the first place. What would you tell a friend if they were in your shoes? What would you say if your daughter was experiencing this with her husband?

@TheHillIsMine i can’t be the only one thinking ‘what could possibly be worst than an affair’ on Mumsnet?!

Can you check if he has gotten other loans out? He could be in huge debt now, there is that to consider too.

I'm sure you're not but I'm not willing to let @Thescornedwife thread become derailed with it. It's also far too painful. I was just making the point that an affair doesn't have to be the end, but sometimes words do.

What do you want?
if you want him back tell him he needs to find a flat and start a new relationship with you until you trust him again , that doesn’t mean living together yet!He needs to be able to support himself financially and rebuild a relationship with you and the kids .
Put yourself first you may prefer a life without him and you deserve more to be honest .

How would it constitute constructive dismissal when this was clearly gross misconduct? He was not doing his job, he was misusing company property, the office, the car, company time he was paid for was instead spent having sex with another employee and there’s cctv evidence? He wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if he got constructive dismissal, they’d instantly hit him with the gross misconduct he deserves and no reference.